Friday, October 14, 2011

AIR - Visual Arts for South Pas schools

Here are some stories from our AIR Program teachers who currently teach arts education at Marengo Elementary School.

Teaching Artist Grades 3 - 5: Sarit Swanborn

Wow! What a week!My
third, fourth, and fifth graders truly seemed to relish this
interactive drawing session utilizing blind contour and gesture drawing
techniques.The pace seemed rhythmic and highly
engaging as students explored drawing with different line weights, close
observation of their fingers and hands, and theatrical gesture posing
for one another.The most pleasant surprise of
all, however, was to watch students, teachers, and even many parent
volunteers focus with intensity…accessing page after page in their quest
to capture the spirit and line of their hands or a student model in an
action pose—using ink pens, then soft charcoal pencils to record the
essence of their subject over and over again. This studio-like
atmosphere was nothing
short of exhilarating, and yet offered an appropriate challenge for our
introductory dip into the corridors of the moving body as an art form.I cannot wait for week two, as we explore classical proportions of the body through wire sculpture!

Teaching Artist K - 2: Sarah Dugan

The classroom teacher was reading a poem about leaves when I arrived so I instantly
started with their poem and all the art within it. The word "hue"
was in the poem and I took out my leaf samples. The poem couldn't have been a better
transition for my point/line lesson as we looked at all the lines within
the leaves. We then read the book and did work in our art journals, then did gesture drawings. I didn't want to suggest the gesture drawing models stand
on the teacher's desk in her class, but after two, the teacher suggested it and rearranged
the entire room to do it. She was so thrilled to see them learning
"useful skills." We then did the scavenger hunt outside and the teacher said the students will definitely write stories in the end with her.